SQHA Beginner/AA Shows a Huge Success

The beautiful trophies on offer for winners

The Sydney Quarter Horse Association (SQHA) were granted perfect weather, with blue sky on both days, for their Beginner/AA Show Weekend, held on 20-21 November. Horsezone were proud sponsors of both shows.

The organisers were thrilled with how well the events went and SQHA President, Mark Webster advised, “both shows were very successful, with great competition and a friendly atmosphere”.

There were 150 competitors over the two days, with 50 competitors for the Beginner Show on Saturday and 100 competitors for the AA Show on Sunday. Judging of the AA Show was handled very capably, considering the large numbers, by Jane Bagley from Texas USA, who was impressed with the turnout.

Entries were up on last year, with riders from all over NSW and ACT competing. Due to the high numbers, go-rounds and finals had to be conducted for some classes, with the biggest ridden class consisting of 20 riders.

One highlight of the show was the close competition for High Point Youth, with Lauren Louw and Jacinda Webster neck and neck until the final event, reining. This was was won by Lauren Louw in the end – congratulations!

Sunday’s AA program did not finish until 8.30pm, due to such a large number of participants. SQHA apologises for the late finish and advises that they will run AA shows over two days in the future, most likely holding AA trail classes on the Saturday afternoon at the same time as beginner classes, to ensure a reasonable finish time on Sunday.

SQHA would like to thank Horsezone and Derks Produce for their sponsorship of the shows, which provided each class winner with a Horsezone voucher and a bag of Prydes Feed.

Winners of the High Point Awards for the AA Show were as follows:

• 3 year old performance horse – Melody’s Iron Profit ridden by Russell Riley


• Junior Performance Horse – Illoominate ridden by Mark Ferguson


• Senior Performance Horse – Dandy Trail ridden by Suzy McLaughlin


• Amateur – Madeleine Kay riding Scotch N Tan and All By Choice


• Select Amateur – Janette Wallace riding Kool Tomcat


• Youth – Lauren Louw riding Boston Beau


• Rider With Disabilities – Sandy Hollier riding WJ Cash

To check out photos from the shows, CLICK HERE to visit the Horsezone Gallery. More photos will be added within the next week.

Next big SQHA show is a multiple judge AA Show on 20-21 February 2011 at Cobbitty. This show will be run in conjunction with Southern NSW and ACT Quarter Horse Club and competitors have the chance of winning four times normal points. Each class will be judged by two judges who are not able to talk and must place competitors as they see fit – they may agree or have totally different views. It will be interesting to see if the judges place competitors in the same order! This method of judging will be a first for NSW.

The Program will be available at http://www.sqha.com.au/ in next few weeks.